Very superstitious: Sports fan stick to their rituals

Julie Jette

Friday

Oct 26, 2007 at 12:01 AM

Call them nutty, call them nonsensical, call them a waste of time – but call them common. According to a recent Associated Press poll, one out of five sports fans say they do things to “make” their team win – or to fend off disaster. WITH SIDEBAR POSTED SEPARATELY.

There may be nothing more pressure-packed and isolating in sports than standing in the batter’s box, knowing your next swing could end your season or set off a grand celebration.
Out of the hitter’s sight, however, an army of fans in box seats and living rooms across Red Sox nation carefully – some might say obsessively – observe a host of rituals they think could determine whether you whiff or go yard.
Call it nutty, call it nonsensical, call it a waste of time – but call it common. According to a recent Associated Press poll, one out of five fans say they perform superstitious rituals to “make” their team win – or to fend off disaster.
With the Red Sox up by two games in the World Series against the Colorado Rockies, a number of local fans are likely patting themselves on the back for voodooing their team toward an increasingly likely championship.
It may be no surprise that fans who thought themselves subject to an 86-year-old curse tried to invoke magic to make it all go away. But many fans are observing rituals that only started with the historic Sox championship in 2004.
Faith Weiner of Stoughton gets a positive vibe going on game day by waking up to Red Sox radio announcer Joe Castiglione’s call for the 2004 World Series’ final out.
Weiner, who downloaded the call to her cell phone, says the club has a winning record on days she sets the alarm.
“Toward the end of the season, they came on real strong and I used my cell phone every day,” she said. “ I feel like I have to pull out all the stops for important games.”
Sandy Fardie’s ritual started in 2003 with a lucky shirt. But the Lakeville resident’s good-luck gear has swelled since then, including her Red Sox bracelets.
But the Stoughton native really brings her A-game in the post season. For every game, Fardie wears cotton pants printed with Red Sox logos, her shirt, her two bracelets, and an American League East championship hat, because she attended the game the night the Red Sox won and the Yankees lost to clinch the division for the Sox.
Most importantly, Fardie must don her entire outfit before the game: Timing is critical, as the Sox lost two games to the Indians when she failed to get dressed in time.
“My husband basically says I have taken it to a level he didn’t know existed,” Fardie said.
She doesn’t wear the outfit solely in the privacy of her own home. When her husband, who is a drag racer, had a race in Pennsylvania during Game 6 against Cleveland, Fardie managed to sneak away from the track and get into uniform.
“You feel like you’re going to jinx them,” Fardie said. “Of course we know intuitively that it’s not what we do, it’s just what you do to get in the spirit.”
So is your spouse/roomate/co-worker convinced that your bizarre rituals have rendered you totally nuts?
Well, good news: you’re probably not.
Diane Davey, a registered nurse who is director of the Obsessive Compulsive Disorders Institute at MacLean Hospital in Belmont, says obsessive activities only rise to the level of a disorder if they really interfere with one’s life or if they take more than an hour per day to perform.
Davey said most superstitious fans are just soothing themselves at a tense time.
“I do think the superstitious behaviors do give people some semblance of control over the uncontrollable, so there is some sort of calming effect there,” she said. “If it brings you comfort to wear your unwashed David Ortiz shirt, that’s OK.”
Then of course, there are the fans who truly suffer for their team.
Ed Keohane of Quincy isn’t just any fan – he’s former president of the BoSox club, the team’s official fan club.
Keohane’s deal is that he cannot move from whatever seat he is sitting in for any game, through the whole season, for any reason whatsoever.
In other words, if nature calls, Keohane doesn’t answer until the last out in the ninth.
And then there’s Quincy’s Tony Agnitti. Like former Sox third baseman Wade Boggs, who famously ate chicken before every game, Agnitti’s ritual – which began just before the Sox rally to beat the Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Serie – is gastronomic in nature.
“I go somewhere to have a hot dog with mustard, whether I’m going to the game or not,” he said.
And as most fans know, if a little luck is good – more is better. Especially if you happen to really enjoy your particular ritual.
On his way to a game with his son earlier in the playoffs, Agnitti said they stopped on Yawkee Way and had a dog on their way in.
Once inside the park he said to his son, “‘Hey, we have to have a hot dog for good luck.’ And my son said, ‘I thought we already did.’ And I said, ‘Shut up, kid.’”
Julie Jette will be wearing her husband’s lucky “Pat the Patriot” hat for the remainder of the World Series. She may be reached at jjette@ledger.com.

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